Her Mother's Footsteps
by Rat Mouse
Summary: Every little girl wants to follow in her mother's shoes, but what if that shadow isn't what you want, and what if you have no other choice but to chase after it?
1. Theif

Every little girl wants to follow in her mother's shoes, but what if that shadow isn't what you want, and what if you have no other choice but to chase after it?   
Warning: Violence, Abuse, Rape, Prostitution, Alcoholism, Drugs, Incest, and Language 

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**Her Mother's Footsteps**

Aiella barely five years old and smaller than she should be hid in the corner of a rundown, near uninhabitable room in which she had lived in for the past 5 years covering her ears in desperate attempts to keep the noises out of her head. Her mother was working again. Her mother always had men come in at hours that seemed to baffle the little girl. The men would then go with her mother into the bedroom and make noises that she didn't ever want to hear. That was what her mother did for work. The men would give her money and leave, sometimes grinning and winking at the little brown haired girl, while other times they would leer at the child as her mother pushed them out, though many times they would just ignore her. Whether they noticed her or not she didn't want to know. 

"Oh!" came a hoarse scream from the other room.   
"That's how you like it, huh baby?" came another. 

The little girl just ground the balls of her palms into her ears harder and started humming. She would not cry. She would not cry. This time the internal monologue was true to the girl, she didn't cry. She was beyond the need for tears anymore, she had shed them far too often for there to be any left for this moment. 

"Sleep, my baby, on my bosom,   
Warm and cozy, it will prove,   
Round thee mother's arms are folding,   
In her heart a mother's love.   
There shall no one come to harm thee,   
Naught shall ever break thy rest;   
Sleep, my darling babe, in quiet,   
Sleep on mother's gentle breast." 

She sang the scarcely remembered tune softly to herself in a shaky voice, shutting out the things she didn't want to hear and things she didn't want to know about. 

"Sleep serenely, baby, slumber,   
Lovely baby, gently sleep;   
Tell me wherefore art thou smiling,   
Smiling sweetly in thy sleep?   
Do the angels smile in heaven   
When thy happy smile they see?   
Dost thou on them smile while slum'bring   
On my bosom peacefully." 

Aiel sniffed and slowly clambered to her feet moments later, though it seemed like years. She was hungry and she knew that her mother wouldn't be finished with the client for another bit. Even then it wasn't likely that the woman would notice the child she had willingly brought into this world for no other purpose than to try and swindle money from the child's overly rich father that didn't seem to want her. Her mother didn't want her either now, she was no use to the woman and hadn't brought her anything more than another mouth to feed. 

Aiella, all the while watching the door to her mother's bedroom climbed up onto the counter and then onto a stack of books. If she stood upon her tippy toes she could just barely reach it. The old cigar box that her mother kept their money in that is. If the girl took too much from it her mother would surely notice, but if she just took a little bit at a time the woman was oblivious. 

Aiel vacantly remembered the one time she had taken too much, her mother had come up to her ranting and raving about how she didn't raise her daughter to be a thief that steals from her own mother. She then went into a litany about how she always gave Aiella what she wanted and how she raised her proper. The woman was drunk at the time and the snort that escaped Aiella's small mouth had been seen as impertinence that had earned her a swift slap to the cheek that would surely turn a nasty colour of black. She had spent the rest of the day hiding in the cabinet where the never used ironing board was kept. The small child hadn't meant to be rude, but it couldn't be helped. The woman hadn't raised her to be anything. She had raised herself and the only thing that the woman that was her mother had taught her was how to curse, how to smoke, how to drink, how to do drugs, and how to get laid. Nothing worthy of the five year old that she had found herself to be. So she was a thief, she didn't care, it was owed to her by her own thought. She wanted to live, though for what she didn't know. So the child barely old enough to count pulled out a 'hard earned' dollar and a few coins that her mother wouldn't miss and made sure to place the box back where she found it on her way out the door she was hardly tall enough to open. 

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	2. Sweets

More of Her Mother's Footsteps. Same warning as before..though nothing too bad yet..enjoy.   
thanks to both Silver Petra and Missa32189. Sorry about the delay..us theatre majors tend to do that...dissapear without warning for a month..   
Warning: Violence, Abuse, Rape, Prostitution, Alcoholism, Drugs, Incest, and Language 

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**Her Mother's Footsteps**

"Here you go, sweety" the man winked at her as he set the girl's soup before her with a little extra piece of hard candy hidden in the saucer next to a piece of bread. Aiella smiled up at him and silently handed him a coin for her food. Let him think that she was just an innocent little girl, was her philosophy, her sweet face and deceptively bright eyes could weasel out something from even the hardest man. In this case it was always a sweet. That's why she had chosen this showhouse today, the man who owned it for some reason or another liked her and would always leave a treat for her on her plate. Something to give her good thoughts and help to wash away the noises she didn't want to hear and the things that she didn't want to know. She knew too much for a girl her age and rather liked to have something to forget that fact, something to distract her mind and linger on her tastebuds. A sweet. 

She took what she could get. That was how to survive and the only way she knew how to live. Take what can be before there's nothing left to take.   
As it was most of the money the child collected from her mother's stash went into her own for later use, because she knew that she would eventually need it. She had no misconceptions about her mother's love or lack there of for her, so it sat in a pouch she had hidden behind a loose brick in the wall for the day that her mother would chose to get rid of her. The rest went to keeping herself alive, with food and shoes. No matter how things went Aiella always made sure that she had a good pair of shoes to protect her small feet from the unrelenting cobblestone and the bitter weather that the winter winds and the spring rains always brought. She had seen people die because they didn't have shoes to cover their feet and didn't want to be a part of that group. But at the moment her worries were few, there was hot soup infront of her and a piece of candy waiting in her pocket. She was warm, she was dry, so for the moment she was content. A contentment that she held on to, it would only last until the instant that she had to go back home. 

* 

"Take care young miss, the weather's turning" the old gentleman at the door of the showhouse warned her as she quietly left the warm interior of the slightly broken old building that she suspected was even older than the gentleman that saw her off each time she left. Aiella sighed as she picked her way back home through the debris ridden side streets and people ridden main. Yes, she was going back to that disgusting little hovel that she called home and her mother called office, though many could wonder why. She, however, knew why. She was too young to get a decent job, the factories might hire her if she lied and told them that she was 7 or 8, but the streets weren't kind to children. The girl had seen what could happen to people outside the confines of a building and she didn't want to end up as some ne'er-do-well's prized mistress, her mother had already shown her that that business wasn't at all as desired as it might have been made out to be. 

'Maybe tomorrow' she thought as she neared her street and slowed her walk to a near crawl trying to delay the inevitable of walking up those stairs and though a battered door into the apartment that she lived, 'maybe tomorrow I can go see grammy 'Ian...' Or rather her father's mother, her grandmother Reiliana. The woman was the only one that actually seemed to care for the girl and the only one that tried to treat her right so naturally the child adored her. The one she could turn to when her days got bad, though Aiella had to be careful, she had to always be careful when in her father's house. The man could never know that she came, because surely he would not allow it. 

_... "Gammy Ian, who's that?" a small child with vivid red-brown hair and wide, enchanting gray eyes asked her grandmother as the girl pointed out to a slightly smaller portrait in the corner of the room that she had never noticed before. _

The old woman smiled fondly and lifted the child up for a better look, "that was my husband, You're Papa Joel." 

"Oh" the girl's mouth hung open in reminiscence of the sound that had been produced by it as she moved her short fingers lightly across the faded paint. 

"Did Papa Joel make the Rose Garden like in the stories?" 

Reiliana smiled at her grandaughter's question, knowing just what the little girl was asking about. "Yes he did" The woman smiled again... 

Joel hadn't actually made the rose garden that now resided a little distance from their back steps, the rose garden that her little Aiella was asking about was and intricate mural that had been painted upon the inside of the stables. Her husband had wanted to give her a gift for her birthday, a garden of her favourite flower. The only problem was that a garden could not have been planted at the time since it was winter and the ground was frozen through. So Joel had done the next best thing he could think of, he had painted the garden instead. The man had banished her from the place at the time and snuck off there every day to work on it, then brought her blindfolded into the stable on her birthday to present it to her. 

Aiella loved it in there because of that painting and wanted to go out and play in the dusty old horse place whenever she visited her Gammy Ian, not that Reiliana complained, she loved it in there too, it kept her close to Joel and she got to spend time with her grandchild, who's visits weren't too often and far between. 

Aiella literally shook off her memories that seemed to come from long ago by a quick shake of her head as she reached the ominous gray steps that lead up to the interhall of her building. The girl was home, though she didn't really want to be. She didn't ever want to be there. She hoped that she could at least get some sleep tonight and that her mother was not still working as she used all of her weight to tug open the massive wooden door that led inside to the place where no little girl should have to be. 

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	3. Lessons

Sorry for the extended delay...Here's more of Her Mother's Footsteps..   
Warning: Violence, Abuse, Rape, Prostitution, Alcoholism, Drugs, Incest, and Language 

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**Her Mother's Footsteps**

_..."Gammy Ian!" a child shrieked happily as the older woman engulfed her in a tremendous hug. "I made you something!" Aiella grinned as she proudly displayed the jumble of shiney pieces of things that had seen better days. "It's a windchime" _

Reiliana smiled as she took the contraption from her grandchild "I know" she told the young brunet "Why don't we put it in the stables, next to the rose garden. It can be out art gallery" 

"Yeah!" Aiella danced around happily and tugged upon her grandmother's hand energetically "Right now, Gammy Ian! Right now." Her grandmother smiled at her and started in the direction of the old building when another entirely different voice stopped her with a cold detachment that froze her heart every time she heard it. 

"Mother, why is that..child_..here?" _

"She is your daughter, you know" Reiliana told her phlegmatic son as she pulled the child in question close to her side as if to protect her. In fact the old woman had the sneaking suspicion that she was protecting the girl from her father. She never had liked Larin's attitude towards the child and wasn't sure if she would ever trust him to keep her little Aiella from harm. 

Larin just frowned at his mother and said in a stiff voice "I don't like her around, she's a bad influence on Aiden and Amaliea. You can't ever be sure what kinds of habits she picks up from her mother. I don't want those kinds of things around my children!" With that the rigid man stormed off in an angry huff, not likely to return until Aiella was long gone from the house. 

All Reiliana could do was tut at her son, the man obviously wasn't used to thinking of the little girl still clinging to her side as one of his children. It was all so sad for her. She, at least, didn't want Aiella around those kinds of things either but Larin would never listen to his mother's insistence that the girl should live with them. "Come on, Aiella," the woman disengaged the younger girl from herself and took her tiney hand into her own withered one "let's go hang that windchime."... 

"Aiella! Pay attention!" the voice snapped her out of her revery and her eyes snapped from staring inanely at the wood grained wall just to the left of her mother to the woman herself. Up the spotted red dress that hung off the woman's body so much like a discarded rag that accentuated her curvy hips and displayed her supple bosom. Aiella inwardly cringed at the sight though nothing but bland disinterest marred the girl's lovely features. 

"Really child," the woman wearing far too much makeup and a hairstyle that didn't help conceal the effects of it huffed "If you don't pay attention you wont know what to do, and then you wont get anyone worth getting to pay you!" 

Aiella rolled her eyes then fixed a cheerful smile upon her face. She didn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps but she had long ago given up the argument with the woman that never would listen. The girl figured that she should have run away by now, but never seemed to have the strength to do it. She always felt guilty about leaving her mother, not that her mother really had ever cared for her beyond the money that she could make for her. Even now her mother wasn't thinking beyond money for her alcohol and newest drug. She was giving her daughter lessons on attracting the eye, though even at the age of nine she didn't need help in that department, her looks already did that for her much to her own dismay and her mother's great delight. When she was younger Aiella had been happy with her sweet looks that often times pulled at people's heartstrings until they relented and gave her a treat, usually in the way of food. But now she was coming to wish that those looks had faded as she grew. Then some of her mother's clients wouldn't have taken notice of her hiding in the corner of the room, and wouldn't have casually asked how much for a go with the daughter. That had sent off her mother's greed and the idea that she should start selling her daughter as well.   
So that's where Aiella was stuck, taking seductive lessons from her inadmissible mother, against her will and all of her judgement. 

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End file.
